Final Foo Finale @ The Foobadour

This is where we left off on Valentine's Day eve --->

Foo Fighters @ The Troubadour 02/15/11

Foo Fighters w/ Mariachi el Bronx

When: Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Venue: The Troubadour, LA

Accompanied by: Megan, Colleen, Sarah
Genre: Rock 

Tuesday morning (2/15), bright and early we were gifted with this tantalizing tidbit of a tweet:

Later on, a follow up tweet directed followers to FOO FM 90.8 which looped Donna Summer's disco hit "Last Dance"...a secret message? Is this our last chance at love with the Foos? I wasn't entirely sure they would even have a last dance since the "secret" weekend show had been cancelled.

Holding tightly to Dave's joking references to Echoplex and Troubadour as places they hadn't played "yet", I connected with a friend of a friend, who I can now say is my friend too, and made arrangements to meet up by The Troubadour. Why the Troub and not Echoplex? It seemed to be the consensus location that most everyone was speculating upon...and after last weeks near miss of the wristband location (NOT Garage Pizza, go figure), I was going to follow the majority lead.  As it turns out, my new friend...we'll call her Megan (but that's only because it's her name), lived a few minutes away from The Troubadour, so when she drove by and saw the line already forming by 1:30, she grabbed her "mom kit" complete with iPad, snacks, and a blanket and set up camp. I arrived about 40 minutes later and got comfortable on the blankie ready to people watch and await more Twitter clues.

Technically, Megan was 50th in line when she got there, putting me at #51...so we felt pretty secure that we'd have no problem obtaining wristbands. But there were a few factors that we had lingering in our heads:

1. What if they pull the old "wristband/venue switch-a-roo" again like last Tuesday?
2. What if each of the 49 people in front of us are holding spots for above and beyond the unspoken +1/no more than 2 rule?
3. Why are they not unloading the truck that appears to have equipment in it? Is it a decoy?
4. At this point, there had been NO confirmation/tweets of this being the place to be, what is our exit strategy if they tell us "psych, this ain't the place"?
5. Why are we stressing ourselves out with such thoughts??

We determined that the venue had approximately a 500 person capacity...so we fairly confident we were golden, and pretty sure that the majority of those behind us would also score. Unfortunately, that was not the case...but we'll come back to that.  As the afternoon passed by, the line continued to grow, nearly to where the end wrapped all the way around to where it began. Eventually the Twitter chirp alerts went wild and four yfrog photos appeared.  Can't say the photo clues made a whole lot of sense to me...but then I am completely Los Angeles illiterate. Honestly, at this point, if the show was going to be at any other venue than the Troubadour, all holy hell would be sure to break loose.

Not sure what time this tweet appeared, but this finally confirmed that we were indeed at the right place, along with the latest Foo FM radio annoucement at 102.7. Sadly, it wasn't too long before the "that was quick. troub is totally sold out" tweet appeared.

By the time 5pm rolled around, security and Troubadour staff made their way over to the line and started with wristband distribution.  Now, remember, when Megan first got there at 1:30, she had secured us spots #50 & 51. What happened next merely solidifies why I am a bitch about how many people I will personally "hold" a spot for in line for gigs such as these.  As they made their way down the line, we had become #108 and 109. Then we heard whispers of "they are only selling 150 wristbands"...that just seemed impossible. Once we paid our $20 and had our wrists wrapped with the pretty blue band, we stepped back to see where the line would get cut. I can't say for sure, but it looked like they went about 50 - 75 more beyond us. We were floored!!  Surely there wasn't going to be a 300 something guest list?  But hell, it is rock and roll, and we are talking the mother effin' Foo Fighters....so sure, might could very well be!!

Megan, Sara, Tai & Colleen

At this point, we had less than an hour to kill. Megan, Colleen, Sarah, and I synchronized a plan between moving cars, juicing up cell phone batteries, and then meeting up to grab a bite. We ended up at some burger shack to wolf down some LA grease and I was over the moon discovering they had Ms. Pac Man!! Being the multi-task master that I am (not really), I ordered a cup of chili and tossed a quarter in the machine. Good times before more good times followed by even more good times.

Tiffany & Tai

Got back over to The Troubadour to get in line. Heard there were quite a few people who were really disturbed that they didn't get in. "How did everyone know to come here so early"...The police were brought in to make sure things stayed sane, but the number of unhappy fans ran high. And the fact is, no one had the inside track. Many of us had inside speculation based upon random music blogs and various Internet searches, but no 100% guarantees of anything. And let's not forget that damn LA Weekly Blog article that circulated the week prior, right? The difference for the first 150-200 people in line is that they were able to beeline their way to LA at the right time and willing to wait for hours upon hours on the off chance that they were right.


The reality is this..."You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time."  And so we moved on and made our way inside to wait for the show to begin. 


Upside of my evening was being able to watch Mariachi el Bronx from the front side of the stage which made up for having to watch them street view in Santa Barbara a few weeks prior. Seriously, this band is more fun than I can even describe. Since I had been listening to their current CD over and over again for the past few weeks, I recognized every song performed and let my Latin groove go hips and all!

Foo Fighters took the stage around 9 o'clock.  3 hours and thirty something songs later they called it a night. Absolute perfection! Best moment ever was during These Days (click link and forward to around 3:40 to enjoy), some girl felt the need to scream out as loud as she could "I love you, Dave" and Dave's response "shut the fuck up".  It was truly a priceless moment (and no people, it sure as fuck was not ME that did the yelling...not my style. Never has been. Never will be).


Thanks to Erich from the FFPB, here is the closest thing to a set list that I can locate:
1. Bridges Burning; 2. Rope; 3. Dear Rosemary; 4. White Limo; 5. Arlandria; 6. These Days; 7. Back & Forth; 8. Matter of Time; 9. Miss the Miserly; 10. I Shoulda Known; 11. Walk
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12. Stacked Actors; 13. Pretender; 14. My Hero; 15. Generator; 16. I'll Stick Around;17. Enough Space; 18. Times Like These; 19. Cold Day in the Sun; 20. Big Me; 21. Watershed; 22. Long Road to Ruin; 23. Skin & Bones; 24. Aurora; 25. All My Life
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26. For All the Cows; 27. Monkey Wrench; 28. Hey JP; 29. Everlong; 30. Best of You; 31. Butterflies; 32. This is a Call

A few photos from our evening...

For any of you who have not been following the Foo Frenzy...and perhaps have missed this AWESOME video, please take a moment now to have your face rocked off!!  I present to you White Limo, bitches...